‘Thousands’ more in York to get CityFibre gigabit broadband in Sky & TalkTalk trial

A trial of next-gen fibre broadband in York could see thousands more residents and businesses plugging in to speeds of up to 1,000Mbps.

CityFibre’s joint venture with Sky and TalkTalk has aimed to see roughly 20,000 homes and firms able to order pure fibre broadband services, which would provide speeds well in excess of the current national average.

Today, infrastructure provider CityFibre announced that the first phase of construction had been finished, which paves the way for that 20,000 footprint to be increased. While CityFibre isn’t being any more specific at the moment, CEO Greg Mesch said that the next phase of the project will give everyone a clearer picture.

Mesch said: “We are really pleased with what we have accomplished so far. As a team, Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre have validated a network design for true ultra-fast Fibre to the Home (FTTH) for residents and Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) for business users.

“This next phase will accelerate the deployment and will further help to determine the scalability of the infrastructure.”

Later in the year, Sky and TalkTalk will launch ultrafast services using the CityFibre network, which is being built with help from Fujitsu.

The network is independent from BT’s Openreach network. Customers will be able to get a more reliable service with speeds not dictated by proximity to telephone exchanges or street cabinets, as is the case with ADSL and FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) services.